


the static of your arms

by velleitees



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Mild Blood, Mild Smut, killer!dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 17:19:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15801111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velleitees/pseuds/velleitees
Summary: he swallows all his bitter feelings — the ones that are wrong, all wrong.





	the static of your arms

**Author's Note:**

> HI. okay, well, killer!dan inevitably involves themes including very, very mild descriptions of blood and such. also, this is not a healthy relationship at all and this should be taken with the intent that this is, in fact, fictional. please, please be mindful of the above & tags.  
> oh, there's also very mild smut.  
> (this au is very out there and daunting to post, so perhaps i may remove this?)

There are bodies beneath his basement.

Maybe Phil's wrong, maybe he's not, but there is blood underneath Dan's fingernails that makes him think so. He likes Dan — probably, if that's the proper verb to use. It is a likeness anchored by a sort of infatuation, the wrong kind, the kind that makes him sick into the nearest rubbish bin when Dan walks by, all polite formality and distracting hues.

Dan Howell makes him swallow the bitter feelings in his throat in the morning when he steps out into the winter cold. They exchange brief nods, courteous ones, ones that have no meaning, even though the organ in his chest very much concurs. 

Indeed, it is a wrong kind of likeness — to this extent Phil knows.

Red is what Phil can see on the edges of his collar when they ride down the elevator together at precisely 8:15 a.m., matching the crimson he sees under his fingernails as they ride the elevator back up in soft silence at 9:30 p.m. He likes the way Dan looks ahead, blankly, body like nighttime, ivory skin hidden underneath all the layers of clothing. It's wrong to like him, he knows, but the ache in the marrow of his bones was inexorable before he knew that he fell, fell _hard_. Dan is the first to step out into grey London, citrus and coffee following him all the way out of the building, the smell dizzyingly saccharine, nauseating almost.

It gives him a headache, it gives him feelings.

 

 

 

"Are you all right there—?"

Three streets down a hardware store is slotted between a restaurant and a coffee shop. Inside, it's cold and empty, and the voice that speaks is hollow, as hollow as the aisle they're standing in. He's taller, Phil notices, even when Dan's hand hovers over his shoulder. "Yes," he replies, looking elsewhere, suddenly uncomfortable. "It's just heavy is all."

"Oh," Dan nods. There are strange hues in his eyes the second Phil meets his gaze — getting lost in them, their oddness, and it scares him. Phil averts his eyes, trying to find new focus. The basket hits the edge of the display. Their hands touch. Dan pulls away immediately. "I should go—," he walks away briskly, getting away fast, almost nervous, door rattling on his way out, the sound foreboding.

Phil shivers, and shivers, and shivers, heart going awry. It takes an hour before he can go back home. He doesn't sleep that night, the odd eyes that looked at him replaying behind his eyelids in a sickening loop. When he finally does, he dreams of those pupils, and the red that seeps through its holes.

 

 

 

It's twenty-eight days when they speak again.

Phil stands idly in the bleak hallway, sneezing, glasses spotty with rain. The apartment — suddenly asleep without the shudder of human activity — is too quiet under the shadowy yellow of the flickering lights. He grunts, into the nothingness around him. The door swings open beside him. "— You okay?"

“I just left my keys inside.”

Dan blinks. “Have you called management?”

"Yeah, but they're not picking up," he almost stammers, tripping over the verbs. "I'll wait it out at a friend's place if they don't call back soon."

"You can wait in here if you want," Dan offers, pointing behind him. "I don't think it'll take long."

"No, I—" Phil gesture around him, awkwardly. The way Dan stares is always intent, and he can see the frightening things imbued in his eyes, again, all those bizarre tones. Rain drips down his hair, soaking the carpet in dark, splotchy stains. Dan taps his fingers against the doorframe.

"It's warm in there."

_Tap._

"Ah."

_Tap._

The silence gets anxious, so Phil nods. Citrus and coffee suffocate his lungs the moment the door is pushed wide open, and he chokes on the smell, feeling a headache approaching. He stands by the doorway, to stall, maybe. It takes two, three minutes before he walks in, finally, daring to look around, seeing the bare walls. Wetness slips down his neck. "Do you have a towel I could borrow?" 

A distant shrug. "Sure."

Inside the apartment is normal, too normal. There's hardly any furniture in the room, just a sofa and some chairs and a table. It's clean, too clean. Impersonal, even. But the hues inside are morbid, and they match Dan, his skin, his clothes, his lips. Phil stares at all the paleness. His vision swims a little; a towel is pushed in his hands. Dan looks at him, and he's painfully aware of the cataclysm inside his chest. "Is there anything else you need? You can sit if you want, the water doesn't really bother me. I can clean it up and wash things out." Under this light, Dan is no less ethereal than when Phil sees him under the sun, hair coloured like the dead leaves just outside, dressed in all those shadows that seemingly follow him.

"No." _You_. "Thanks — for letting me in, I mean."

Dan smiles, vacantly, and his heart bleeds, breaks. He has a dimple, too. He forces himself to look away. "You should call management again. They might pick up now."

 

 

 

(They get close, if close is the right adjective to describe whatever exists between them. Intimate is the wrong one — completely, utterly wrong, but he likes to think they are even though he knows they're not, the word getting stuck in his lungs and in his throat when he comes close, breath soft on his face, lips close enough to touch. There are secrets hidden like the bodies under his basement. They go out, and Dan still smells like coffee and citrus, deliriously sweet, and there's still crimson under his fingernails, and Phil still coughs out these violent feelings in the toilet when he goes back home. They go out, and Dan laughs, delighted, head thrown back, neck arching gracefully. He acts normal, too normal. Phil loves him, probably.)

 

 

 

One hundred and twenty-two days, and summer approaches with her sticky afternoons and midnight sunsets. Phil gets off work, and the underground is cramped, the train rattling eerily under his feet. Dan leaves the door open to his place. He steps in, and there's an empty body bag stuffed under the sofa. Shame rises inside of him. He hates this — he feels ill, so ill, ill with longing, or disgust, or both. Dan looks up from his phone, shirt loose, exposing the hollow of his throat, his fine collarbones. "You're back."

He nods. "Did you do anything today?" It's an empty question, he knows, but the words spill out anyway. It takes a while from him to reply, again.

"No."

The ceiling overhead hazes over, briefly, and then Dan's sitting on his hips, tugging at his clothes, his heart. " _Dan_ —" he swallows. His pupils are devoid, devoid, devoid, any human feeling lost to the crudeness of the blood staining his clothes.

"I was thinking about you," is all Dan says. The combination of words sound almost affectionate. He freezes, unsure, heart beating capriciously inside his chest. Their bodies are sticky already, from the lack of aircon, maybe, and Dan kisses him first, mouth open against his, fingers removing his clothes deftly, and Phil lets him, weak against his ruling touch. "You like me, don't you?" he asks. It's cruel, so cruel. He does, he doesn't, he does. Phil doesn't reply.

It's easier to fuck these feelings away than to pretend that they don’t exist. Dan's fingers curl into the sheets when he licks into him, and there is heaviness in his ribs that spills all over the mattress when Dan moans, and his body is pliant, smooth, needy. His fingernails are clean, and Dan whimpers and whimpers while Phil breaks and breaks,  demanding more, more pain, to press harder, again, again, _again_.

So Phil gives it to him, hands shaky, his body holy under him, chasing after his own pleasure even though it sickens him. It makes him flush entirely. At some point they stop when their bodies are too weak to go further and they lay there, untouching. If they did, Phil’s afraid of what it would mean. Dan moves close to him, moonlit skin a few shades lighter than his, eyes closing briefly. Hot air comes out when he breathes.

"That was so fucking good," Dan mutters into the weary quiet, after a while.

It's wrong, the thought never leaves him.

It feels good, that thought never leaves him, either.

 

 

 

"You can stay if you want," Dan says. There's purple along his neck and all along his body. His thighs are the most colourful. He forces himself to look at the window.

Phil's pulling his clothes back on, and Dan watches him, eyes still hungry, somehow. His soft chuckle contrasts against all the sharpness of his teeth, and he _bites_. Eyes crinkling, Dan runs a hand over his stomach, raising a finger until he can touch his ribs, feeling the hollows beneath Phil's skin, pressing a soft kiss on the fluttering pulse of his heart (it's  _his — it is, it is, it is_ ). He moves back. "I can't." Phil turns, then, walking away, everything thorny and bleeding, and Dan doesn't call him back. The door that shuts behind him is heavy and final.

 

 

 

He doesn't watch the news, but he knows about the victims that have gone missing, and the evidence is messy, occurring in broad daylight. The suspect is supposedly tall, fairly young-looking.

It's two-hundred days exactly, and Phil wakes to banging on his door and through the wall he sleeps beside. He walks out at 5:37 a.m., and Dan's being lead out, silver handcuffs shackled around pale wrists. Three minutes later, there's another knock at his door.

Sixty-seven minutes later, a man, gruff voice, late fifties, maybe, has a notebook, and he's sat across from him in the coffee shop beside the hardware store, two steaming mugs of black coffee in front of him. Phil burns his tongue on it. Questions are asked—

 _Did you notice any suspicious activity?_ No.

 _Did you ever come into contact with the suspect?_ Only once — by accident. On the elevator, I suppose.

 _Were you ever notified of the killings around the area?_ Through the news, sometimes. I'm not sure.

 _What were you doing last Saturday at 11 a.m.?_ Nothing. I was at home.

A white card with half a dozen phone numbers on it is pushed toward him with calloused fingers. _Please don't hesitate to contact this number if you have more information._ Only one is circled with red pen. The mug opposite him is left untouched. Barely steaming now. Phil walks four blocks away from the coffee shop with the card in his hands, before he tosses it into the nearest bin.

 

 

 

The news of his arrest is splashed across newspapers and on pixelated screens, and it's a messy one, worthy of headlines and police loitering about. Phil can't bear to go outside, so he calls in sick, and the apartment is quiet, as quiet as a void. There's yellow tape, still; Phil doesn't cross it.

It goes like that for a while — for months, perhaps, while Dan awaits his trial. Phil visits him one autumn afternoon, and he's still pretty like he remembered, the sunlight hitting him just right in the ugly, cramped room. It’s a thought that doesn’t belong, he's aware. Stale air and a glass screen are what separate them. And further, seven steps over, behind more glass dividers, people listen in on them.

They don't speak. Not for a while.

Dan is soft around the edges when he smiles, and it doesn’t fit the room they’re sat in.

"You like me, don't you?" 

His lungs shudder with the effort it takes to breathe. 

“— _Yes_."

**Author's Note:**

> find me i'm [velleitees](https://velleitees.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. :)


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